Thursday, January 17, 2008

I've been meaning to post part three earlier, but better late than never, right? Here it is:

Social experiences

Could you tell me a bit more about social experiences?

- On your blog you posted the question that you might “look like an idiot with no grasp of personal hygiene”. How did other people react and how did you react to other people?

- On your blog you mentioned that it “destroys any social life” and that on Sunday’s “I don’t have to leave the house and show the world my hair”. Could you tell me a bit more about it?

- Maybe you can provide some examples?

I didn’t tell anyone at first. After about two weeks, I mentioned to a friend that I had not used shampoo for two weeks and that I’m attempting to try it for a month. She didn’t believe me at first – apparently my hair didn’t look too dirty at that time – and then said that I was crazy for trying to go at it for an entire month. I’m not sure whether anyone else paid much attention.

Going to work or any social events with dirty hair was certainly pretty awkward at times, but no one commented anything. I’m sure no one had any idea about the experiment. Most likely they just thought I need to wash my hair more often. Also, I wore it on a ponytail a lot, which may or may not have helped disguise the fact that it looked terrible. After the month had passed, I told some people about the experiment, and the reaction was always the same: “Really? It doesn’t look that dirty.” If I had told them during the worst days, the reaction might’ve been different. There were days I wished I didn’t have to go outside.

It didn’t really affect other areas of personal care – that would take more experiments. I think I felt pretty good about myself most of the time, though there were some days I was a little embarrassed to show myself in public. Overall, my attitude was very positive, since I was very keen to find out whether the experiment could be done (and I was quite confident that it could). My daily activities weren’t really affected.